No sports fans are as maniacal as the people who pack Southeastern Conference football stadiums on Saturdays. To call college football their religion may be generous to those who believe in a supreme being.

But not even Southern football fans are sure things to show up to games any more—and their increasingly unpredictable behavior has sent officials from SEC athletic departments searching for ways to win them back.

Their common destination this off-season was an unlikely location in Big 12 country. But they weren't scouting other colleges. They were chasing an experience so foreign that it doesn't currently exist in the Southeast: a Major League Soccer game.

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In May, a group from Florida's athletic department became one of hundreds of sports teams to visit Sporting Kansas City, the reigning MLS champion, and Sporting Innovations, the team's spinoff consulting firm focused on fan engagement and technology.

The trip wasn't as unorthodox as it sounds. As colleges seek out ways to enhance their stadiums and entice a generation of absentee fans, they are looking at MLS teams as models, even though the average MLS crowd is about a quarter of the 75,674 that the SEC averaged last season, the top figure in college football.

"The word is out," said Portland Timbers president of business operations Mike Golub, "that it's a special game experience."

Pac-12 officials also took a trip to Kansas City. They were so impressed that they signed a deal with Sporting Innovations, which is quietly influencing the way college-football teams operate, to help them on fan-related issues. "They know what their soccer fans want," said Pac-12 chief marketing officer Danette Leighton.

This week at SEC Media Days—an event in Hoover, Ala., that unofficially kicked off the season—Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen said that SEC football nuts and European soccer buffs were kindred spirits. But college-football fans and MLS fans have a lot in common, too. The average age of Sporting KC's 14,000 season-ticket holders is 29.7 years old, relatively close to a college-aged demographic, said Robb Heineman, chief executive of the team's parent organization.

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The Gators failed to qualify for a bowl last season, and the rate of students showing up to games fell to 66%.
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At first glance, Florida doesn't look like the sort of school that would need to solicit tips from a soccer team. The Gators are the most popular college-football team in Florida, according to Public Policy Polling. They won national championships in the 1996, 2006 and 2008 seasons. School records show that 86% of students used tickets they bought as recently as 2009.

But the Gators failed to qualify for a bowl last season, and the rate of students showing up to games fell to 66%. For the stunning Nov. 23 home loss to Georgia Southern, the student section was only 45% full and more Florida students bought tickets and stayed home than bought tickets and actually used them.

Sporting KC is trending in the opposite direction. The team formerly known as the Wizards averaged 10,287 fans a game in 2010. Then it rebranded, moved from a minor-league baseball stadium to soccer-specific Sporting Park and saw attendance climb to 17,810 a game. That number has increased this year to a franchise-record 19,709 per MLS game.

How they pulled that off intrigues colleges that are struggling to fill their mammoth football stadiums. In addition to Florida, which sent a representative to Kansas City in the fall before a bigger team went in May, three other SEC schools have visited Sporting KC, Heineman said, while Oklahoma State announced a deal with Sporting Innovations in March.

"They're all dealing with the same issues: ticket sales going down and a difficulty getting students to come early and stay late," he said.

MLS executives believe their league's stature forced them to come up with creative solutions for attendance problems before they struck bigger sports like the NFL and college football. The Portland Timbers, for one, scored with fans by making the in-game experience reflect the city around them. Timbers Army members park their bikes outside the stadium, and the concession offerings inside include artisanal, small-batch chocolate. The result: Its 10,000-person waiting list for season tickets is longer than almost every college-football team's.

Sporting KC's approach to accommodating younger fans goes beyond giving them fast Wi-Fi so they can use their smartphones. At a time when some colleges don't keep records on student attendance, Sporting KC collects data on everyone from season-ticket holders to single-game buyers through Sporting Innovations technology, which they offer to college clients. They now have close to 250,000 profiles of fans who have attended games, Heineman said, with information as detailed as when, where and how they bought tickets, what time they arrived at games and who they sat near.

In exchange for that information—which they say allows them to understand their fans better—they offer perks. Sporting KC pays for their fans to attend road games and organizes social events for young professionals in Kansas City. They also strive for irreverence and to be transparent in their transactions, Heineman said, which separates Sporting KC from other teams in pro sports.

It is helping them reach the audience that has eluded colleges recently. One supporter group, the Mass St. Mob, formed in Lawrence, Kan., home of the University of Kansas. Many of the Mass St. Mob's members go out of their way to see Sporting KC's home matches, which are more interactive than any other sporting event, said Adam Crifasi, a 26-year-old electrical engineer.

The issue here is not about soccer, it's about college football attendance. I believe there are three issues that directly contribute to falling student attendance, non of which have anything to do with fancy digital marketing. First, big time programs are scheduling 3-4 cupcakes at home every year. Who really wants to see Georgia Southern? Alabama has at least 3 50-0 blowouts on its home schedule this year. Why go? Second, the games now take forever because of TV timeouts. The in game experience has fallen off because of endless music while a guy on the field holds his hand up waiting for the GEICO ad to end. Third, games are scheduled at night, on Fridays, and at 5 pm to accommodate TV. The old 1 in the afternoon on a Saturday is gone. Students want to party at nigh, not sit in a stadium where they can't drink. Florida is not going to schedule more competitively, cut down on TV timeouts or go back to 1 pm games. So good luck Gators.

I'd have to disagree with the first sentence of the article. Being from Nebraska, I happen to know that we have 333 consecutive home sellouts dating back to the 1962 season. Ohio State, Michigan, Wisconsin all have good attendance as well. I would say the Big 10 is the most tenacious in attendance.

The game day experience and prestige of the SEC is unquestionable, but it seems this article was framed to just get readers. It's not what college football is learning, but what a Florida Gators program is doing after a bad season...

Your article would have been a lot stronger if you included the Seattle Sounders. The Sounders draw an average attendance of over 40,000 fans in a football venue. Larger than some crowds in Europe. They paved the way for the re-invented sporting KC. Why would you overlook them?

Oh, and the colleges don't actually care that students don't come, unless they happen to have lost the support of their alumni boosters. They'd rather sell a ticket to a rich alum before a student every day.

The reason people aren't staying away from MLS games but are staying away from SEC football is that there is no need to go to an SEC football game to see the action. Practically all of them are televised, at least three or more SEC games per week are nationally televised (CBS game of the week, and ESPN, and Jefferson Pilot Sports, etc.). To see MLS mostly still requires a ticket.

I used to go to the stadium to see the team affiliated with the college (the University of Alabama) from which I graduated play. But heaven's, why bother now? I can sit for free in my easy chair in front of my HD TV, with cheap beer and a clean bathroom only a few steps away, watching nearly every last game they play, even against their charity opponents. I think I have missed only one game per season in the last few years.

Face value of tickets these days around 50 bucks(?) to suffer through endless tv timeouts and replays in 95 degree September heat. Then at the end, endure hopeless Tallahassee gridlock trying to leave with 80,000 other people. Football is too bloated now.. lacrosse or rugby, anyone?

Soccer will never be popular in this country when a grown man will throw himself on the ground, all for a desperate attempt at a penalty call. I know that injuries happen, but watching the world cup really reminded me again of how pathetic it is.

Anyway, football will never be replaced in this country. And on that note, GOOOOOOOOOO DAWGS! SIC' 'EM!

You cannot have a great fan experience if your going to have time outs every 2 minutes. Its just not going to happen. You can improve it, but the fan experience will not be the ultimate because of the rules of the game. Soccer fans enjoy going to the games because the game last 90 minutes and you are in and out of the stadium within 2 hours. 45 minutes each half, 15 minutes for half time and another 15 minutes getting snacks and beer before the game and after the game. You can plan your day around a soccer game. You can actually get a lot of stuff done on game day. Its only 2 hours out of your day unlike College Football or NFL or MLB or NBA. Half of your day or almost all of your day is gone when you go to one of these other sports game. I am a busy guy, I got a lot of stuff to do and I want to run my business and attend my Orlando City Soccer game in the same day. Another thing I like with soccer is there is no clutter on the field or on the sidelines. Their is so much clutter at NFL, CFL, MLB games. Too much clutter. As a fan sometimes you cannot even see the play because there are so many people on the sidelines etc. Too much clutter. Its like food, the rest of the world will give you great tasting cheese and tomatoes on a pizza and it taste great, you don't need anything else. America will take that same pizza and put a whole bunch of toppings on it, trying to make it better, but maybe you should just leave it alone, because its perfect the way it is. This is soccer compared to the other American sports. Soccer hasn't change that much since it was created, The NFL put in a rule change every year. I use to love watching the NFL in the 1990's but its just rubbish now. I do enjoy College Football, MLS, and European soccer.

I will probably get flack for this but here goes. Too many big time college football players look and act like they walked off the pages of a comic book. The constant celebrating because you made a tackle or made a first down. Grow up!! Then the price and time enters into the equation. I miss the good old days when kickoffs where between noon and 1:30 pm. Now, it could be anywhere between 11:00 am and 8:00 pm. The colleges want the big TV money, go for it. Just remember you probably would like to show a stadium that has people in it. Lastly, why televise every game. Unless the game is sold out, there is no need for it to be televised, unless both schools are in the top 25.

Portland Timbers home stadium seats 22,000; Sporting KC as mentioned in the article is 19k. That's the "innovation" that matters - there are basically no bad seats in the house and so the experience is much better. Major college football stadiums are trying to cram in 80-100K. There are several better options for watching the game than sitting in the top bowl of one of those stadiums.

Any one who has watched the games on television can't blame the students for avoiding them because the team has a HC that has been a dinosaur when its comes to offense. Even the commentators have acknowledged this. After having had explosive and thrilling offenses under Spurrier and Meyer, the clown went to a ground and pound, boring offense - causing the team to have one of the worse offenses in college football for the last three years. Football is entertainment, and the students were just reacting to what the clown put on the field. The stupidity is rewarded with million dollar contracts

I had not priced college games in, well, decades. But wow. Expensive. Decent seats are about $60 for the UM (my local university) Duke (meh) game. In the $600s and $700s for FSU, a local rivalry. $2400 for 4 tix (take the family) can get you a pretty good home entertainment system and sports / cable package. $240 pays for a good sports package for year.

Florida is down. Sports fans are spoiled and don't like their teams to do worse than their gaudy expectations.

AND, we have spoiled fans to watch on TV at the same time we are overpricing tickets. Look at college basketball. TOO MANY games on TV. I don't see this trend reversing.

They seem to want a full stadium AND all the TV money. That is a tough proposition but their greed is beginning to kill some of their revenue sources. When the choice becomes drive 200 miles, spend all day, OR watch on HD TV, more and more people just watch on TV. I live in Memphis. I have friends with perfect UT tickets 400 miles away. They RARELY go, maybe once a year. of course those tickets are easy to give away or sell. But, 15 years ago, they were not missing games. additionally, as the younger less wealthy fan comes up, he has other interest than just college football.

I've been saying for years that the only American sporting experience that even comes close to European soccer in terms of passion and spectacle is college football. Regardless of what you think of the on-field action, the match-day experience at an English, German, or American soccer game is tough to beat. I applaud Florida for thinking outside the box here and admitting that they can learn something from a sport that a lot of their fans may not even care about.

While some colleges (Florida) seem to be "tackling" the issue of falling attendance head-on, others (Michigan) are blaming others. HD TV, etc are most commonly cited by these schools as the problem. I recommend John U. Bacon's recent articles as examples. Sadly, the problem seems to be that the athletic department doesn't understand their product, nor their customer. A recipe for failure, evidenced by declining ticket sales, and falling season ticket holders. If soccer/MLS has it right, study it, and implement the parts that fit CFB.

@Madelene Teperson Madelene, you're going to have to do better than "doubt."

While some people may not appreciate watching professional soccer in the United States and do not like for it to take up too much time on sportscenter it is certainly a very interesting business case study. In business there's nothing better than growth and pro soccer is experiencing that in a very competitive marketplace where many other sports are headed in the other direction. I do think my local pro soccer team could take some cues from college football like live bands instead of that crappy loud speaker music. "Who let the dogs out?" Really?

@Steven Daly Seattle's great. Their crowds are terrific too. Kansas City had a fairly remarkable turnaround. Sporting Innovations is a legit company that helps stadiums. Kind of a Disney Imagineers of sports.

I'm 100% certain that the article never actually said - or even insinuated - that soccer would replace (college) football. The point of the article is that SOME colleges aren't getting the support they were used to.

Fortunately, these teams are choosing not to stick their hand in the sand and tell themselves that they'll NEVER be replaced. They're looking around at other sports - in this case MLS soccer - that are growing and wondering what they might be able to learn from them and hopefully apply to their team.

Whether they (a) learn anything and (b) can apply it to college football would be an interesting debate. Sticking your head in the sand and yelling 'we're #1 baby' (metaphorically, please don't attempt this at home) while ignoring the decline, really isn't the intelligent thing to do.

But by all means go back to your same old tired cliche's and choose to ignore the world's most popular sport.

@Jenny Talia *I* didn't imply that soccer would replace football; what I wrote was that it never will (subtle difference).

And to your last point - I don't know about you, but I'm an adult - I don't do things because of their popularity, I do them because they are what I enjoy. It's anyone's choice to ignore one sport or another, cliché or no.

@SANFORD PINNA@Gregory Wassall I occasionally watch a New England Revolution game. I pay $25 for a great seat, about 10-15 rows from the playing field. They play in Gillette Stadium, capacity 69,000, but they average only 19,000 attendance at their games. The Patriots sell out every home game and have a waiting list for season tickets, despite charging $75-$295 for a single seat. Keep dreaming about soccer becoming number one.

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